A compelling look at spymasters to Hitler who met with vastly different ends -- Reinhard Heydrich (AKA the Man with an Iron Heart) and Adm. Wilhelm Canaris.
Heydrich, "the apotheosis of the blond god of the German Reich," headed the "SD" intelligence agency, "meant to spy on members and enemies of the Nazi Party." So feared was he that some thought he could one day succeed Hitler. He worked under Heinrich Himmler, head of the "SS" removal and killing unit. (Interestingly, we learn that Heydrich "always faced a lingering accusation he was of Jewish descent.")
The more cosmopolitan Canaris helmed military intelligence for Hitler, and he grew alarmed at Nazi control of the armed forces. We're told he started to lead a double life as he associated with people plotting against the dictator. His chief of staff was Hans Oster, who began conspiring against Hitler after the capture of Sudetenland, wanting Hitler to be arrested for provoking a war.
This gripping episode is part of a fascinatingly illustrated "Secrets of War" series narrated by Charlton Heston. I'm glad I stumbled upon it in my efforts to better understand the madness of war.
In addition to introducing these two key figures, the segment summarizes important developments of WWII.
* Hitler rationalized his land grabs with a goal of uniting German peoples. In October 1938, the Munich Pact (whose signatories included Britain and France) enabled him to absorb 11,000 square miles of Czech territory housing 3 million German speakers "simply because he demanded it" -- even though France had a treaty with the Czechs. Most of Europe, still recovering from the Great War, lauded this as "a way to avert major war on the continent." However, today it is seen as a tragic act of appeasement. Just six months later, "the world was stunned" when Hitler swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
* Looking for an excuse to invade Poland, the Nazis devised Operation Canned Goods, in which prisoners from concentration camps were dressed up as Polish military troops and shot at the border, "evidence" of Polish provocation. Germany's Sept. 1, 1939, invasion of Poland led France and Britain to declare war, and is viewed as the first act of WWII.
* The Nazi plan, we're told, was to eliminate Poland's upper class, leaving remaining citizens of the country to become a "subservient slave race." Thousands of Poles were executed to create "lebensraum," or "room to breathe" for the expanding German nation. The Einsatzkommandos aimed their machine guns on Polish Jews. One horrible piece of film in the episode shows a man about to be shot into a pit filled with corpses. We're told that Canaris went to witness such atrocities for himself, and "saw he was a part of a system that was bankrupt of morals, and ethics, and knew no limits." When he approached Wehrmacht leader Wilhelm Keitel and asked, "Isn't there something you can do to rein in the excesses of the SS?" he was told to "mind his own business -- there was nothing that could be done about it." Canaris sought help for a German resistance, and conspired with Oster to arrange support through such offices as the Pope and the British government.
* In November 1939, Johann Georg Elser attempted an assassination of Hitler in the Burgurbraukeller bombing in Munich. (This poor man was held at Dauchau for five years before being shot a month before the Nazis surrendered.)
* The episode climaxes with an enactment of the May 27, 1942, assassination attempt on Heydrich. (How uncanny that a person in his position took the exact same route to work each morning and didn't even have a bodyguard!) He died several days later, and even among his closest aides "he was a hated man," we're told. A striking death mask was crafted, its likeness placed on a Nazi stamp. And because Czechs had carried out the attack, Hitler's wrath came down on a Czech town, Lidice. All adult males were lined up and shot, women and children were deported to concentration camps, structures were disassembled brick by brick, and the town was "taken off of German maps."
* The Nazis also came up with a scheme for destroying the British economy, culling experts from among concentration-camp inmates to forge British banknotes. As this plot is discussed in the documentary, we are treated to a rare bit of film proving that the Fuhrer was capable of smiling.
Canaris faced a trial of sorts and was sentenced to death. His final words, tapped out on a wall in Morse code to a Danish prisoner in the next cell at Flossenburg, were: "I was no traitor. I did my duty as a German."
Canaris died a slow and terrible death on April 9, 1945. Marched naked to the gallows, he was hanged with a piano wire as Patton's tanks approached, just 100 miles away.
The tragedy of it all really is beyond words.
Heydrich, "the apotheosis of the blond god of the German Reich," headed the "SD" intelligence agency, "meant to spy on members and enemies of the Nazi Party." So feared was he that some thought he could one day succeed Hitler. He worked under Heinrich Himmler, head of the "SS" removal and killing unit. (Interestingly, we learn that Heydrich "always faced a lingering accusation he was of Jewish descent.")
The more cosmopolitan Canaris helmed military intelligence for Hitler, and he grew alarmed at Nazi control of the armed forces. We're told he started to lead a double life as he associated with people plotting against the dictator. His chief of staff was Hans Oster, who began conspiring against Hitler after the capture of Sudetenland, wanting Hitler to be arrested for provoking a war.
This gripping episode is part of a fascinatingly illustrated "Secrets of War" series narrated by Charlton Heston. I'm glad I stumbled upon it in my efforts to better understand the madness of war.
In addition to introducing these two key figures, the segment summarizes important developments of WWII.
* Hitler rationalized his land grabs with a goal of uniting German peoples. In October 1938, the Munich Pact (whose signatories included Britain and France) enabled him to absorb 11,000 square miles of Czech territory housing 3 million German speakers "simply because he demanded it" -- even though France had a treaty with the Czechs. Most of Europe, still recovering from the Great War, lauded this as "a way to avert major war on the continent." However, today it is seen as a tragic act of appeasement. Just six months later, "the world was stunned" when Hitler swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
* Looking for an excuse to invade Poland, the Nazis devised Operation Canned Goods, in which prisoners from concentration camps were dressed up as Polish military troops and shot at the border, "evidence" of Polish provocation. Germany's Sept. 1, 1939, invasion of Poland led France and Britain to declare war, and is viewed as the first act of WWII.
* The Nazi plan, we're told, was to eliminate Poland's upper class, leaving remaining citizens of the country to become a "subservient slave race." Thousands of Poles were executed to create "lebensraum," or "room to breathe" for the expanding German nation. The Einsatzkommandos aimed their machine guns on Polish Jews. One horrible piece of film in the episode shows a man about to be shot into a pit filled with corpses. We're told that Canaris went to witness such atrocities for himself, and "saw he was a part of a system that was bankrupt of morals, and ethics, and knew no limits." When he approached Wehrmacht leader Wilhelm Keitel and asked, "Isn't there something you can do to rein in the excesses of the SS?" he was told to "mind his own business -- there was nothing that could be done about it." Canaris sought help for a German resistance, and conspired with Oster to arrange support through such offices as the Pope and the British government.
* In November 1939, Johann Georg Elser attempted an assassination of Hitler in the Burgurbraukeller bombing in Munich. (This poor man was held at Dauchau for five years before being shot a month before the Nazis surrendered.)
* The episode climaxes with an enactment of the May 27, 1942, assassination attempt on Heydrich. (How uncanny that a person in his position took the exact same route to work each morning and didn't even have a bodyguard!) He died several days later, and even among his closest aides "he was a hated man," we're told. A striking death mask was crafted, its likeness placed on a Nazi stamp. And because Czechs had carried out the attack, Hitler's wrath came down on a Czech town, Lidice. All adult males were lined up and shot, women and children were deported to concentration camps, structures were disassembled brick by brick, and the town was "taken off of German maps."
* The Nazis also came up with a scheme for destroying the British economy, culling experts from among concentration-camp inmates to forge British banknotes. As this plot is discussed in the documentary, we are treated to a rare bit of film proving that the Fuhrer was capable of smiling.
Canaris faced a trial of sorts and was sentenced to death. His final words, tapped out on a wall in Morse code to a Danish prisoner in the next cell at Flossenburg, were: "I was no traitor. I did my duty as a German."
Canaris died a slow and terrible death on April 9, 1945. Marched naked to the gallows, he was hanged with a piano wire as Patton's tanks approached, just 100 miles away.
The tragedy of it all really is beyond words.